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The Barbican Estate
With stunning images, expert commentary from world-famous architects, and interviews with residents, The Barbican Estate pays tribute to one of London’s most iconic structures on its 50th birthday.
This beautifully illustrated and comprehensive book celebrates London’s Barbican Estate as it nears its 50th anniversary in 2019. Author and designer Stefi Orazi examines both the function of this landmark and its status as a world-famous Brutalist icon, interviewing residents past and present to provide insight into how life there has changed over the decades. Leading architects and design critics weigh in, including John Allan of Avanti Architects on the unique building materials and Charles Holland of Charles Holland Architects on the Barbican as a home and how these concrete towers have become such an integral part of Britain’s architectural history. For each of the 140 different flat types, there are drawings, maps, and details of the fixtures and fittings.
This beautifully illustrated and comprehensive book celebrates London’s Barbican Estate as it nears its 50th anniversary in 2019. Author and designer Stefi Orazi examines both the function of this landmark and its status as a world-famous Brutalist icon, interviewing residents past and present to provide insight into how life there has changed over the decades. Leading architects and design critics weigh in, including John Allan of Avanti Architects on the unique building materials and Charles Holland of Charles Holland Architects on the Barbican as a home and how these concrete towers have become such an integral part of Britain’s architectural history. For each of the 140 different flat types, there are drawings, maps, and details of the fixtures and fittings.
304 pages, Hardcover
Published May 7, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 8, 2020
Gorgeous photographs in this book, as well as lovely stories from inhabitants. However, way too many grammatical errors bring this down to 3 stars for me. Inexcusable to have such sloppy text in an otherwise lovely book. This remains my favorite place to visit in London, and I’ll use the maps and stories to explore more deeply next visit.
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May 31, 2025Sitting at the Barbican, reading about the Barbican. Everything might just be okay.
January 3, 2022
The haters can say what they want about this building, I would absolutely live there..
July 23, 2020
The photos are great, but I really wish there was a bit more information attached to them: like which bits of the photo are original features, maybe comparisons of the same rooms in different flats of the same type, and so on.
December 25, 2024
Lowering my rate because of the many typos and grammatical errors. Seems the text wasn’t edited at all, unacceptable.
January 24, 2026
This doesn't take long to get through as it's essentially a picture book with around 6-10 pages of writing in total.
Ok lets get to the positives, the photographs are stunning, full page colour prints that really show off the might of the Barbican, particularly the shots of the outside/gardens/lake.
But then the negatives. There are pages and pages of floor plans of the different types of apartment/house on the estate, bearing in mind there are over 100 types, that's a lot of plans! And they're just there, no context or accompanying text. Unless you're an architect or a fan of linear drawings, these are unappealing to look at. I felt that many pages were wasted with these plans that could have been used for more amazing photographs.
The photographs of the interiors are without context; it would have been helpful to see a floor plan of that corresponding apartment/maisonette/house so you could see how the space flowed or fit together. Instead there was a random picture here of a white bedroom, then a random balcony there, a kitchen here but is it the same apartment's kitchen, who knows?!
A lot of the interior shots show colourless interiors, stark white walls, white floors, white bedding. There needed to be a greater diversity to the interior shots, more colour.
I think Stefi Orazi missed a trick here. To go to all the trouble of photographing all over this amazing estate then to waste endless pages on floor plans seems like a massive oversight, or maybe it was a nice little earner and she is safe in the knowledge that whatever she puts in, we suckers are gonna pay for a book full of photos and drawings to put on our coffee tables!
Ok lets get to the positives, the photographs are stunning, full page colour prints that really show off the might of the Barbican, particularly the shots of the outside/gardens/lake.
But then the negatives. There are pages and pages of floor plans of the different types of apartment/house on the estate, bearing in mind there are over 100 types, that's a lot of plans! And they're just there, no context or accompanying text. Unless you're an architect or a fan of linear drawings, these are unappealing to look at. I felt that many pages were wasted with these plans that could have been used for more amazing photographs.
The photographs of the interiors are without context; it would have been helpful to see a floor plan of that corresponding apartment/maisonette/house so you could see how the space flowed or fit together. Instead there was a random picture here of a white bedroom, then a random balcony there, a kitchen here but is it the same apartment's kitchen, who knows?!
A lot of the interior shots show colourless interiors, stark white walls, white floors, white bedding. There needed to be a greater diversity to the interior shots, more colour.
I think Stefi Orazi missed a trick here. To go to all the trouble of photographing all over this amazing estate then to waste endless pages on floor plans seems like a massive oversight, or maybe it was a nice little earner and she is safe in the knowledge that whatever she puts in, we suckers are gonna pay for a book full of photos and drawings to put on our coffee tables!
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January 13, 2025Sheer brutalist filth, mainly comprising photos and floorplans (you could run one hell of an atypically well-lit dungeon crawl with this to hand). The Olympian perspective of the exterior shots occasionally undersells how wonderfully green and alive the estate feels when you're in there; the pictures of private interiors obviously have higher nosy parker appeal, though also confirm my long-held suspicion that I'd rather have a resident friend who invited me round than live there myself. And even then, a lot of the flats feel a little too impeccably tasteful; I'm particularly concerned about the denizen who does have a full shelf of Wodehouse, but in a uniform edition and ordered by spine colour, a disordered orderliness with which I can imagine Plum himself having a field day.
There is text too, a mixture of residents (past and present) and staff offering their mostly positive impressions of the place with slightly longer essays by architects, journalists &c. Here, alas, we find a fly in the ointment to mirror the Barbican's own galley kitchens. Not because there's anything wrong with the tone they mostly take, a mixture of awe at the great achievement with lament for how hard it is to imagine modern Britain having the vision and determination to accomplish anything remotely comparable. No, the problem is that just as many estates of a similar vintage were doomed to decay and worse by short-sighted penny-pinching, such a lavishly designed and produced volume appears to have considered it an unacceptable luxury to hire a bloody proofreader.
There is text too, a mixture of residents (past and present) and staff offering their mostly positive impressions of the place with slightly longer essays by architects, journalists &c. Here, alas, we find a fly in the ointment to mirror the Barbican's own galley kitchens. Not because there's anything wrong with the tone they mostly take, a mixture of awe at the great achievement with lament for how hard it is to imagine modern Britain having the vision and determination to accomplish anything remotely comparable. No, the problem is that just as many estates of a similar vintage were doomed to decay and worse by short-sighted penny-pinching, such a lavishly designed and produced volume appears to have considered it an unacceptable luxury to hire a bloody proofreader.
January 20, 2019
A wonderful compilation of photos and plans and other details of all the different apartments over all the different blocks. I particularly enjoyed the stories from residents past and present.
May 5, 2026
Interesting to know that Barbican flats technically don’t have kitchens - they have “cooking areas”
April 14, 2024
It's the perfect reference book for any art directors looking to emulate the classic Barbican designs.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews